Pieces & Shards
by kerein
Summary: A collection of Bleach ficlets & drabbles. Featuring all kinds of scenarios and pairings - Yaoi/Yuri/Het.
1. Ownership

**Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach. ****Bleach and all its characters are the property of Kubo Tite**

I feel a bit guilty writing these when I still have that looong fic I need to finish. However, writing shorter fics do seem to keep me in Bleach mode… or just in plain writing mode.

Still, to think I'd actually start with…

Aizen / Baraggan

(My, is that the sound of any possible readership running away really fast?)

* * *

**1. ****Ownership **

"What drives you?"

The former king of Hueco Mundo does not react. To address the source of the question, he would have to look up - and that, he does not do.

Aizen Sosuke had never declared himself as the king of Hueco Mundo. He does not need to. Even if he did, it would not be true because he does not consider this as his realm. A mere stepping stone to another world he'll create. After all, isn't that what a god is supposed to do?

Baraggan Luisenbarn replies slowly, without turning his head.

"Boredom, it used to be."

Aizen chuckles as if he truly understands. Perhaps he does. A bored king. A bored god.

Slowly, Aizen steps down. The ends of his robe lightly flap after his footsteps. He approaches the segunda Espada and crouches down near him, almost kneeling as his brown eyes look up at the hollow sockets. A mockery of reverence.

A hand reaches up and traces the jawbone, describing its edges. A nail clicks against the hard surface once. Baraggan does not know whether it is intentional. Does not care. The two are scarcely alone together but when they are, Baraggan is nearly always in his released form. It is preferred upon such events, as rare as they are. It is unclear as to for _whom._

Baraggan has no use for such a thing as imagination. It implies dwelling upon something that has not yet happened and may never do. For him, it is always the present. Anything that exists does because he perceives it. Nothing else matters.

Yet now, as the long fingers lightly stroke the fine boundary between his jaw and his teeth, Baraggan imagines flesh falling off from those fingers to reveal their own smooth, white bones. Pictures those bones disintegrating into fine-grained powder, to be blown away and scattered over to bury itself in the vast sands of Hueco Mundo.

Aizen slowly rises, and the fingers follow his movement, sliding up towards the eye socket. One finger slips into the gaping hole, caressing the smooth interior like kisses of greedy worms upon silent corpses.

"And now?"

_Now_. He can do it now. Let his resurreccion's power wash over his whole being, rendering the prying fingers into nothing.

Baraggan merely answers:

"Vengeance."

"Ah."

Aizen allows a sigh-like, amused acknowledgement.

"And after that?"

It is a ridiculous joke. They both know it as such. Baraggan replies anyway.

"There is no after. Afterwards is nothing, as it always has been. There is only the death that I bestow. And that, also, is nothing."

His power is that of time which rots away life. Strangely, it deprives him of itself. There was never any use for 'time' in his world. There was no 'before' or 'after' - only the ever-stretching 'now'.

That was before this shinigami had stepped into his kingdom.

The shinigami chuckles again before taking his hand away.

"The One Who Bestows Death… I did say that you look just like a shinigami."

Baraggan then slowly faces him, lifting his skull to stare into those glassy brown eyes that reveal less than his own empty sockets.

"Perhaps I will be yours."

Your death-bestower, your shinigami who will see to the rotting of your soul into nothingness.

Aizen smiles, raises his hand again to touch Baraggan's crown, trailing down to rest on the side of his skull. Aizen leans in.

"Ah, but, God-King of Hueco Mundo,"

Warm breath ghosts over the cold bone.

"Aren't you already mine?"

* * *

In the honor of Aizen in his pre-pupae... I mean pre-narm days


	2. Combing

**Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach. ****Bleach and all its characters are the property of Kubo Tite**

**

* * *

**

Gin + Rukia  
(Not too long after Rukia is adopted into Kuchiki family)

**2. Combing**

**

* * *

**

"Hey-. Rukia-chan, right?"

Kuchiki Rukia pauses and half-thinks that she'd imagined call. It's been a while since anybody has addressed her that way. She turns around. There's a field of grass and wildflowers just beyond the smooth path she is walking – a sight so sharply bright it almost stabs at her eyes. A figure sits among the grass, underneath a tree, like some mischievous spirit from one of the tales she heard as a child. Yet - Rukia blinks to make sure – if it really is a spirit, then it had managed to steal a captain's uniform. The figure calls to her again. Rukia unthinkingly points to herself before remembering her current position and hastily bends into a formal bow. When she lifts her head, the figure is beckoning towards her.

_["One shouldn't follow when a spirit beckons…" That's how one of the old tales went.]_

It sinks into her that the captain of the 3rd division is calling an unseated shinigami. Rukia hurriedly steps into the field. The tall grass and long-necked flowers snag at her uniform as she makes her way towards the captain. She stops uncertainly in front of the sitting figure, wondering if it is impolite to look down on a superior – but wouldn't it be more impudent to sit down without being asked?

Then Ichimaru Gin holds out a comb.

"Do me a favor?"

Rukia blinks. It's summer. The afternoon sun is pouring its heat and cicadas scream under its weight. The nearby tree drapes splotches of shadow upon the pale figure in front of her.

"Sir?"

"You see, it's the dandelion seeds. Can't get these fluffs out of my hair – and I can't see the back of my head. So…"

Rukia stares. She is just outside of the tree's shade and the top of her head feels hot. Her hair is damp with sweat due to the previous training. There's liquid warmth inside her head that makes her numb. A stray thought floats above from her hazy consciousness – this colorless creature that holds out a comb to her, he must feel cold to the touch.

_["…You'll be like a bird held by a snake's gaze…"]_

Rukia notices that she hadn't made a reply only after she takes the comb. But by then, Rukia is already inside the shade facing the back of Gin's head. Rukia cautiously kneels down. There are indeed many fluff-seeds hidden between the white locks. Rukia endeavors to not touch with her hands but this proves impossible. Rukia is soon absorbed in the task - her fingers carefully parting and smoothing out the pale strands that do indeed feel cool every time her skin brushes against them.

_[She had touched a snake once, when she was young. A dare from one of her playmates in Rukongai. The dryness of the skin surprised her, smooth and soft. The mild coldness almost alarming.]_

At some point, she realizes that she is idly combing through the white strands because the errant cotton-clumps cannot be found anymore. She stops and hesitates. Then Gin abruptly turns around and she involuntarily recoils. The feeling he brings up during their rare encounters hits her in full force. The captain of the 3rd division brings out all the survival instincts she honed in Rukongai. That telltale pricking sensation on the back of her neck. The feeling that someone is sliding a frozen knife along the inside of her scalp.

Gin takes the comb away from Rukia's unresisting fingers and gestures with his other hand.

"Now, turn."

"…Captain…?"

"Well you did mine. I'm returning the favor."

Rukia can only look on blankly, still kneeling. When an inkling of understanding clicks in, she jumps up, forgetting herself.

"Captain Ichimaru! I cannot possibly…! It's just…!"

A pale hand casually snatches her wrist and she nearly stumbles.

"Sure you can. And it's just fine. Sit."

Somehow, Rukia is whirled around and she finds herself sitting with her back to the captain – without any memory of getting there. The comb is already in her hair. She wonders how one can be so dazed and as taut as a bow at the same time. Gin's touch hardly feels like anything. If he had snuck upon her and put his fingers into her hair, she wouldn't have noticed.

_[The snake had actually slid along her hand – she had felt a cold sting that ran to the top of her head. She had pretended indifference in front of her playmates – a childish pride.] _

The comb brushes against a certain spot and Rukia flinches. The comb is gone immediately. Rukia turns a little. The corner of her eye catches Gin looking at a dried bit of blood caught between the teeth of the comb. Rukia is embarrassed and angered all of a sudden, as if he had invaded into something private, something she'd kept closeted. Then Gin gently tilts Rukia's head forward - his hand pushing her hair aside. A finger taps at a red welt hidden underneath, above the nape. Rukia directs her suppressed shudders to the tight squeeze of her balled fists upon her lap.

"What's this?"

"It's… from hair pins."

_[Beautiful and expensive things, as befitting a noble household. The woman 'assigned' to Rukia still persists in weaving those ornaments into her hair every morning. Rukia has not dared to ask her to stop.]_

"Ah, naturally they would fuss about their young lady's hair at Kuchiki household."

"I… take them off during training. They keep getting…dislodged."

"They obviously do a bit more than that."

_[The things weigh down on her so that she cannot lift her head properly for the first few days. The elegant edges prick and chafe at her. When she couldn't stand it, she had pulled one off and was surprised to see blood staining the sharp end.] _

Rukia bites down on her lower lip as that mild coldness traces the sore spot again. Gin murmurs as he picks at the remaining flecks of dried blood.

"All things come with their own stings, don't they?"

Rukia is somehow ashamed, without knowing for what or for whom. She feels compelled to make some sort of defense.

"… I cannot seem to be able to handle them very well."

There's no reply to Rukia's small utterance as Gin pats down her hair to cover the wound. The comb is back again but the teeth do not graze the skin beneath. The shade has dried off her sweat. The comb coaxes all the stray strands into place – like a soft hand lulling a kitten to sleep.

_[Of course, she cannot put the pins back by herself once she has taken them off. The look the household gives when she returns with her head bearing nothing. The words they don't say. The back of the man she calls her brother tells her nothing.] _

"I suppose they don't know what to do with me."

The air she inhales is a block of ice in her throat. She _couldn't_ have said that aloud. Perhaps she didn't. There's no reaction from the figure behind her. Then the comb leaves her and a hand lightly runs through her hair a few times.

"Well, as long as you know what to do with yourself."

Suddenly, the voice feels a lot closer. The whisper tickles that sensitive, hidden spot above her nape and sends a jolt along her spine like a warning.

"... Or others will soon find out what to do with you."

A light pat on the head, then the hand and the voice move away. Yet Rukia doesn't dare move. Then she manages to let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. Rukia manages to turn and see Ichimaru Gin already standing, looking down at her with that inscrutable smile.

"I'll be off then, Rukia-chan. Do take care of yourself."

She merely stares as the captain walks off. She only realizes that she has not made a proper reply when she manages to get up, much later.

* * *

Rukia puts the faint pricking at the back of her head and nape down to her imaginings. Probably due to her previous 'meeting' with Captain Ichimaru. Hours later, Kaien points out the thistles woven into her hair. Kaien says that the blue-violet flowers actually look quite beautiful that it's almost a pity to remove them - if it weren't for the thorns.


	3. Teachable Moment

**Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach. Bleach and all its characters are the property of Kubo Tite**

**general zargon, thank you for your comment! Yes, I scared myself with the 1****st**** chapter… I must admit, 'Tatsuki and Kenpachi' is an idea I never thought about before but it sounds intriguing. I'll try something on that one soon!**

**

* * *

**

**(An AU scenario set after the 'Winter War'. Many of the arrancars are alive. Soul Society and Hueco Mundo are still at odds but they mostly leave each other alone. Some of the arrancars are on a visiting relationship with Ichigo and his friends. This explanation may be longer than the actual story)**

**Ulquiorra, Rukia, Ichigo  
(Refers to a certain scene in vol. 1)**

**

* * *

**

**3. Teachable Moment (Missed)**

**

* * *

**

"Look, it's really easy, actually. First, you take this thing called 'straw' that's attached here…"

Rukia stopped her eager explanation as Ulquiorra casually tore out the straw from the side of the juice box and immediately plunged it into the marked hole on top.

An hour later, Ulquiorra finally asked Ichigo if he'd done something wrong – because Rukia is _still_ crouched in a corner, staring at the wall and refusing to talk.

Ichigo told him to not worry about it – it's a silly story anyway.


End file.
